Musing: Intel’s 10nm Is Delayed Until 2019. Where goes the Apple MacBook ?

Does this mean Apple will delay the next generation of MacBooks even further ?

Overall, Intel had a stellar quarter, but it originally promised that it would deliver the 10nm process back in 2015. After several delays, the company assured that it would deliver 10nm processors to market in 2017. That was further refined to the second half of this year.

On the earnings call today, Intel announced that it had delayed high-volume 10nm production to an unspecified time in 2019. Meanwhile, its competitors, like TSMC, are beginning high volume manufacturing of 7nm alternatives.

I’m not an expert but Apple has aligned its MacBook release plans to Intel CPUs. Previous product lines have been delayed when Intel is unable to deliver on the schedule that it commits to. On the basis that Apple performs a substantial amout of the customisation to the motherboard for its laptops to improve power and add its own custom silicon, a correlation between Intel CPU failures and Apple product releases would be synchronised.

I’m ‘sads’ because I’m ready for new MacBooks but the current generation suck badly and I would rather not buy the crippled products on offer today. I need ports – USB A & C plus SD-Card slots are the minimum. Preferably a HDMI port too.